Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/50

48 the schools where the study of it may be most successfully pursued. The simple and sufficient remedy for the above grievance would be to form a competent tribunal in each profession for the examination and admission of members to practise in it without reference to the degrees either of the existing universities, or those of any other body.

If this were done, (and let it be remembered that this does not rest with the universities, but with other bodies, over which they have no control,) the university question would then be disembarrassed from this popular topic of declamation, which, however, has little real bearing on the case; and we might then more deliberately and impartially consider other parts of the subject.

And the first point, which I should anxiously wish to see the authorities of the university itself take into their consideration, is that of the subscription to the thirty-nine Articles, now required at matriculation. I am far from agreeing with the plausible, but most unfair representations which have been made of this practice; nor has wit been well employed in casting ridicule upon a subject which we might expect at least to be seriously considered. The subscription required is, I believe, in this place, universally understood in the sense in which it was maintained by the Bishop of Exeter in his masterly speech in the House of Lords; and care is taken to explain at the time of subscription